Deep in the Meadow

|32| eliminate West

Selena is freaking out. A tear rolls down her cheek before she bolts off running over to the cells.

"Selena stop!" I yell chasing after her.

She stops in front of the cells and looks in all of them.

"He's gone. He's dead." She whispers as I reach her.

"No Selena. We don't know that." I try to console but even I don't believe myself.

Peeta steps in.
"The only person who would know the answer to whether the CA is alive or not is West. So let's go find him, kill him, and get the Capitol Alliance back. We can't let the districts down. We must stop the mutts." He says taking charge. And he's right. We need to stop worrying about our feelings right now and get our job done.

Selena wipes a tear off her cheek and stands up straiter.
"Your right. Let's just get our part of the rebellion over with. I'm done with West." She states so seriously it makes me even sadder for her sake. For all we know, all her friends and her boyfriend is dead. Boyfriend? I guess that's what she would consider it. After all, they seem pretty close and every time Oden looked at her I could see love in his eyes.

"The only place I would think West would be at this time is in the training room. He's probably watching the rebellion play out on the screen in there." Selena tells us. Then with that, we take off jogging to the training room door. I've only ever seem the door to the room, I've never been inside.

Peeta and I, with hands still entwined, reach the door and immediately open it without hesitation. We step inside with Selena right behind us, expecting West to greet us. But he doesn't.

The training room is huge. It's bigger than the torture gym. I guess it had to be in order to hold a hundred angry wolf mutts. But I didn't think it would be this big.

The floors are concrete with maroon painted walls, and there is a line of workout equipment against the long right wall. Punishment whips sit in a large barrel right beside the door, with another barrel of rags and mops on the other side. The smell of sweat and blood faintly lingers.

Selena clears her throat and steps up to stand beside me.
"If West is anywhere, he is over there." She points to a large door at the end of the training room.
"It's his mutation genetics office. He monitors what the mutts are doing and can watch each individual one of them while checking their genes. That why I think the mutts are probably headed back to the Capitol now and are probably already fighting the districts." She explains.

"Ok. Well let's get this over with." Peeta says. I can't agree more.

Peeta starts running first, pulling me along. The farther we get into the training room, the more blood I can smell. Some blood spots stain the concrete floor and every once in a while there is even a blood puddle. I cover my nose trying not to gag.

We get to the big door and this time we don't open it right away.

"Shouldn't we get weapons or something?" I ask.

"If you can find some, then yes." Selena answers. And I know I wont be able to find any. So instead, Selena grabs the handle of the door and gently opens the door a crack. Surprisingly it doesn't make a sound.
She opens it an inch more and I lean in closer with her, trying to see in. Selena leans in more and peeks through the crack.